Byron Scott Says Kobe Bryant May Not Play In Some Games This Season

Lakers head coach Byron Scott says he plans to rest Kobe Bryant in some games this season. Scott says Kobe will not be going two-a-days in training camp, and depending on how Bryant’s body feels during the season, he may sit him out some games.

So let me bring up a scenario here. Say there’s a game on the East Coast, went into double-overtime, and Kobe played a lot of those minutes. And then you’ve got a game the very next night. You notice that maybe he’s not moving around so good, is it going to be easy for you to tell Kobe Bryant, ‘We’re going to have to limit your minutes tonight. Maybe you take a night off?’

Yeah it’s going to be easy, but it’s going to be hard to probably have that happen! [Laughs] But again, he’s so competitive, he wants to win, and I do too. But I don’t want to win at the expense of having my one of my guys get hurt. And sometimes, like I said, we’re going to sit down, me and my trainer have already sat down, already started talking about the amount of minutes Kobe should probably play, going into this season. And I have to stand fast on that. I have to make sure that when he’s up to those minutes, that’s it, no matter what the game situation is, as much as I want to win, as much as he wants to win, I’m not going to sacrifice his health to try to win games.

How’s that moment going to be like, though? Because Kobe has this intimidation thing happening for him. You’ve known him since he was a kid, but he’s a guy that’s won five titles, he’s considered one of the greatest of all time…How do you ‘stand fast,’ as you say?

Well, first thing, I ain’t never been intimidated by anybody, so that won’t be a problem. But he’ll have to know from me, and I’ll tell him afterwards, when I say, ‘No, you can’t go in,’ I love him as a person, I love him as a player, and again I’m not going to sacrifice his body just to try to win a game.